September!!

Today we celebrated the start of a new season in our life....the mobile clinics (and Mark traveling more than one third of the time!) are over for the year, the monsoon season is coming to a close, a hint of Fall is in the air.  We kept Sara and Caleb home from school and headed out to a village a half an hour further up on the mountain to make the most of a beautiful day.  While Mark and the kids enjoyed some lunch I went on a glorious bike ride.  You can't smell the sun drenched pine, hear the  flirting hoopoes, taste the fermenting apricots scattered on the road, or feel rushing wind spray your face with grit, but I think you'll enjoy the scenery. 

In this quiet I can hear vehicles from quite a ways off and I was glad that there was a convenient pull off for me when this bus came my way. It certainly took up the whole road space...and a little more

 

 

 

 

This late summer GREEN is incredible. My camera doesn't do it justice. The dull fields of grass, the bright fields of cabbages, shiny green of apple trees, emerald green of plum tree leaves, deep green of pine. Hard to believe this same hillside will soon be golden, then beige, then white, and inaccessible for a few months of winter (this road is blocked with snow during winter).
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This young man and his grandpa are on their way to their apple orchards. He is wearing a blue basket on his back to carry some back home.

Then I met up with Mark and the kids and he went on a ride while the kids and I explored in the woods a bit. The bottom picture is a cedar cone from a Deodar tree. The cone looks like a rose!

After a stressful August, this day was such a gift of grace to our family!

BOOOOOOOKS, glorious books!

I'm making the most of this reliable internet while we travel, thinking of alllllll the things I've wanted to post on my blog but haven't been able to do so where we live.  I love to read books of various genre, and love hearing and sharing from other readers. 


Some novels I have thoroughly enjoyed the past few months:


The Hunger Games Trilogy  I wasn't sure if the gore factor would be too grim for me, but I loved these books, borrowing one each month with my Amazon Prime Kindle deal (do you know about that, it pays for itself just in borrowing the one book per month!)


The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai  An excellent historical fiction novel about 1990's NE India.  The characters all reminded me of people I have known in this grand land and the writing is just delicious.


The Snow Child  by   This is like a fairytale for grown-ups, based partly on a Russian fairytale, leaving me curious and wondering about the identity of Faina. 


My Man, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. A little British snooty humor is a great anti-dote to taking oneself too seriously.


Some non-fiction that has been kicking my booty and stimulating thoughts:

God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey Into Sex Trafficking and Rescue by Daniel Walker
This book wins The Heaviest Read award for my 2012 so far.  It is a stark and dark depiction of slavery and our tendencies toward depravity.  I came away from this with eyes open and looking, wondering who is crossing my path that might be enslaved, or part of that other world of which I am so ignorant.  I also came away with a humbled awareness of my own proclivity to numbness. 


Letters of Madame Guyon by Jeanne Marie Bouvier
I only heard of this 16th century saint recently and have been intrigued by her observations on life in Christ. 

The Seasons on Henry's Farm by Terra Brockman
In my secret life (ie pipe dreams) I'm a farm girl so I love a good non fiction account of the land throughout the course of the year. I loved joining this family in their efforts to bring life from seeds, dirt, and rely on each other.  And it has been super motivation for all the jamming, canning and dehydrating I'm doing this summer to prepare for winter!

Parables of the Christ-life by Lilias Trotter
Lilias Trotter is a devoted plant lover who compares the life of a Christ-follower to the life cycle and processes of various plants. I was astounded at the detail she provided and my eyes were opened to see much more of God of His process in me in the beauty that is all around, and to the hope of the unseen seed.

Biographies:

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself  by Harriet Ann Jacobs
I have read many, many books about slavery, but this autobiography gave me new awareness as this former slave told her own story with strength, clarity and beauty. 


Western Himalaya and Tibet: a narrative of a journey through the mountains by Thomas Thomson
This is a great Anti-Whining Read for me next winter.  These French dudes cross Mongolia and China to get to Tibet like 150 years ago.  They are frostbitten, accosted by bandits, and this is all in severe cold with few provisions.  Amazing.


Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas
This was a disciplined read for me, parts were dry, but I was so challenged as I followed Bonhoeffer's life of priviledge into hard choices for justice, a theme in our days. 

Nepal!

To comply with our 5 year Indian visas we have to leave India every 6 months.  These are pretty much the only times when our family comes out of the hills to Modern India, which is like a different country in itself.   We had 5 great days of vacation in Kathmandu, Nepal where our kids got to SWIM...

and play a GIANT CHESS SET ...

and play on playgrounds and climb at play places in malls.

After Nepal we were in Delhi for a few days for Sara to get some orthodontic work done that isn't available where we live.  During our days in HOT Delhi we met some of our good friends at the National Children's Museum.  They enjoyed climbing on the various things that would be behind bars in many museums (I wasn't quick enough to get pictures of our boys IN the engines and up at the nose of the fighter jet about 8 ft off the ground 'locked' behind a gate they easily opened.)

Our Delhi hotel also had a bathtub (a rare treat in this land!), which Indira Gandhi is rumored to have called, "the ideal place in which to enjoy a mango" so our mango monsters did just that.  The abundance of fruit in the flat part of India this time of year is just amazing, so we really enjoyed lots of that!!!

We are now enroute to our Himalayan home, spending a few days near the town where our car is getting repaired after a little fender bender on the way down to Delhi.  It's an odd feeling to be going ' home' to the place that is most home for us, but still not HOME, a poignant longing for permanence that we won't have on this earth, a great reminder that we are just sojourners. 

Recharge

By choosing to live in a village, there is much that we embrace with enthusiasm and a few things we are slowly learning to accept.  I love being part of a tight knit community in which my children drift in and out of a couple neighbors’ homes all the time, and theirs do the same in ours.   We help each other with daily life stuff, like picking burrs out of the kids’ clothing and minding babies.  Being the introvert that I am (I do love to connect with people, just recharge ALONE), it is challenging to never know when I will get a minute to myself at home.  Just when I have my own children set up for a rest time so I can sneak off to eat some American candy and read a book by myself, the doorbell often rings and I welcome in whoever stands there.  Neighbors float in and out randomly all day long and many others visit too, often seeking a consultation with the Doctor Sahib, my husband.  Most days I make 3-4 cups of tea, some days closer to 10. 

After months of this I started feeling a little panicky at times…”WILL I EVER HAVE A MINUTE TO THINK A WHOLE THOUGHT ALONE!??!”  I considered how I handled this feeling at other times in my life (believe me, as a mom of four little ones, this is NOT the first time my introvert boundaries have been challenged).   I remembered that at other times in my life riding a bike has been an excellent escape for me, (sometimes hauling little people in a trailer, but still alone on the bike...the little people in these pics are just so cute I had to share!  Great memories of VA).  I am a nicer person when I ride a bike, a kinder, gentler me.  The endorphins of a good workout are a fantastic mood lifter, as is getting out of my house. 

My husband was quickly agreed  when I proposed getting a bike for me (he likes a nicer wife, who wouldn’t?)so when we were in the big city this past January, we got a Sanity Saving Cycle and hauled it back up the mountain.  Once most of the snow had snow melted I went on my first ride and it was rekindled love to have the wind in my face as I flew down the road alone.  Usually I ride out on a road that is slated to be the next national highway but right now is perfect for riding because it’s a work in progress so there isn’t any traffic besides the flocks of goats and sheep on their way to pasture.  It is bumpy and rocky and a loooooong way down to the river, but it’s nice and wide for a bike.

Sometimes I just have enough time to coast out 20 minutes (downhill) and then pedal hard back to the house 20 more minutes (uphill).  Other days I have time to ride till the road ends, turn around and camp out on a rock, spending a couple hours watching the eagles, reading, journaling, thinking, meditating, praying before I ride home.   

I still can hardly believe I get to ride my bike in the Himalayas!!!  It’s such a gift, a fabulous benefit of living here.

Walnuts

One of the many perks of living here is that our generous neighbors share their plentiful crops with us.  In the Fall, and occasionally in the Winter, we are given apples by the bushel.  All Winter and into Spring we are given dried local apricots and walnuts in the shell.  I recently took advantage of our beautiful Spring weather to open the walnuts we had accumulated the past few months.

We do own an American style hand nutcracker, but I've grown to prefer the two stone method and love that our newly five year old has mastered it!  One benefit of the two stone method is hanging out with neighbors while shelling the nuts, and then everyone enjoys a good snack at the end. 

 Random: we had to briefly clear out of the way while our other neighbor brought some hay down the path to his house. 

Birthday Boy!

My big FIVE year old!! We had a party with nearby friends.

I made a sheet cake and  my 8 year old decorated it for me, using plastic army men and marshmallows.  Our friends' son shares our boy's birthday (he is now four!) so they also brought a beautiful bakery cake.  It was a good thing we had both because we had about 20 kids and several adults.  I love the simplicity of birthday parties here: eat cake and chips, open presents, and play Doggie, Doggie Where's Your Bone.  Then the kids played together for a while and the adults drank chai and chatted. 

I love getting to borrow our sweet baby neighbors!

and it's now 2012

As a good friend reminded me on FB yesterday, it has been a long time since I posted anything on this blog, over SIX MONTHS!!!  Now that we have more consistent electricity and internet I'll give it another try, although most of you probably keep up with us on FB.  This post is a little rundown, for me as much as anyone, of a few highlights from the last several months. 

September:

Found a house we could rent in the remote area we’ve been hoping to move to for years!

               

Some dear friends from NC visited us!
 

October:

                We moved house for the 4^th time in 2011 J  Our kids say that this is the best place we’ve lived in India because of all the great outside places to hide and play.

November:        

We began settling into village life, enjoyed attending weddings and getting to know our neighbors.  Why yes, Sara and I ARE wearing matching dresses....her dream come true that we have matching Indian suits made AND that we wear said matchie matchies to a 'function' like a friend's wedding.  Sigh.  I love my daughter, what can I say? 

December:

                We continued to settle into village life and had a great first Advent and Christmas here, with guests coming and going all Christmas day and evening to share in the celebration, a first for most of them.   For our Advent wreath we use local clay oil lamps on a steel plate.   It Our kids make gifts for each other and my favorite this year was a secret hiding box Sara made for Caleb. 

January:

To comply with our Visas that give us permission to be here, we have to leave the country every 180 days, so we spent 3 weeks in Thailand, attending some meetings, and enjoying WARM vacation with precious FAMILY--Mark's parents and his aunt met us there, allowing us to have a year's worth of dates in 2 weeks.  It was a wonderful break to be effortlessly warm and eat lots of yummy fruit, salad, and meat, the things we miss here.

While we were in Thailand, our village got pounded with snow.When we returned the last week of January we were welcomed by icy roads, plenty of the white stuff and frigid temperatures.

February:

                Two weeks after we came back, Mark and Sara headed back down the mountains to pick up our friends who have moved here.  While they were gone we got a foot of fresh snow, our pipes froze and broke, and our electricity was out for days.  This winter has been a great time to live like Little House on the Prairie times!  Below is a picture of me organizing the woodpile on our back balcony.  I always dreamt of living like they did back then and have had many days like that since we’ve moved here. 

March has been full of many other exciting events that deserve their very own post.  (In other words, I'm going to bed and hope to post again soon.)